Regina v Boateng; [2016] EWCA Crim 57

‘The defendant. a Ghanaian national, held a non-European Union passport. His wife, also a Ghanaian national, assumed the identity of a deceased Ghanaian national, who had had Dutch citizenship, and obtained a Dutch identification card and a Dutch passport under that false identity. The defendant and his wife had an infant daughter. On the false premise that he and the daughter were entitled to reside in the United Kingdom by virtue of his wife’s falsely assumed status as a European Union national, the defendant obtained residence cards, each in the form of a Home Office stamp in a non-European Union passport, for himself and the daughter. On three occasions the defendant used his passport, containing the residence card stamp, to enter the United Kingdom, and on one occasion he used it to open a bank account in there. The defendant and his wife were charged with various immigration and documentation offences. The defendant pleaded guilty to eight counts, charged as follows: (i) seeking or obtaining leave to enter or remain in the UK by the deception of applying to the Home Office for a residence card for himself (count 2) and for a certificate of naturalisation (count 12), contrary to section 24A(1)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971; (ii) facilitating the commission of a breach of section 10(1)(c) of the “Immigration Act 1999” by obtaining leave for his daughter to enter or remain in the UK by the deception of applying to the Home Office for a residence card for her, contrary to section 25(1) of the 1971 Act (count 3); (iii) possessing false identity documents with intent, contrary to section 25(1) of the Identity Cards Act 2006 (counts 4 to 7); and (iv) being in possession or control with intent of an identity document, namely a British passport in his own name that he knew or believed to have been improperly obtained in February 2012, contrary to section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010 (count 13).’

WLR Daily, 16th March 2016

Source: www.iclr.co.uk